


Dream's End

by minkhollow



Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: Gen, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 17:57:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16309970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkhollow/pseuds/minkhollow
Summary: Dona finds more than an empty dome in Zanarkand - and more than she'd ever bargained for.





	Dream's End

Dona excuses herself, citing a need to think, and finds herself falling into old habits in what should be this place’s inner sanctum: she kneels at the base of what was once, long ago, a fayth stone, and performs the prayer. Even knowing there will be no response from the faded husk of Lord Zaon, old habits die hard, she supposes.

She should have stopped. She should never have tried to come here at all.

All summoners who undertake the pilgrimage say they’re doing so to defeat Sin, but Dona will freely admit that was her secondary motivation, when she first went to Kilika Temple and refused to leave until they trained her in the art. Ever since Sin killed her father and sister, and her mother’s response was to pretend they _never existed_ , Dona’s wanted nothing more than to be remembered after her death. And on this wretched continent, where death can come at any moment and record-keeping is spotty at best outside of Luca or Bevelle, there’s really only one way to do that – choose the time of your exit from Spira for yourself by bringing the Calm.

Even then, for a long time she’d thought she would never trust anyone enough to set out on the pilgrimage with them. Everyone knows summoners have to trust their guardians implicitly, and that’s something Dona’s never been very good at. She’s still not sure how Barthello wormed his way past her defenses in the first place, only that he did, and loves her despite everything she’s put him through. For a long time now, she’s regretted that success in this endeavor would mean she’d have to leave him alone.

Still, at least they’d been able to plan for that eventuality. This, though… she’d mocked Yuna for daring to set out with so many guardians, and yet now, she finds herself wishing she had a choice to make.

A heavy weight settles on her shoulders, startling Dona out of her thoughts; it’s only Barthello, though, draping the fur cloak he’d bought before they left the Calm Lands across her shoulders. That done, he sits down next to her, at the edge of the broken stone.

“I’d do it, you know.”

Dona sighs. “I don’t doubt you would. This is… still far more than I ever thought to ask of you.”

“How could you have known? Sir Auron never talks about it.”

“And with good reason – who would believe this story if they heard it? Maester Seymour’s equally quiet about the origins of his personal aeon, but that makes considerably more sense _now_.” The pyreflies swarming this dome (honestly, it looks more like a long-abandoned blitzball stadium than a proper temple) certainly cleared up that mystery.

“Still. If I can help you defeat Sin by doing this… we don’t have to worry about what I’d do without you, anymore.”

“Defeat Sin.” Dona snorts, almost despite herself. “It wouldn’t be a true defeat, not as long as that scar on the mountain is still active. To combine that many people into one continuous fayth stone… whoever made it intended to summon something big.”

Sin is the biggest thing that Dona can imagine being summoned in such a manner, and destroying a fayth stone in active use is a tricky proposition at best. You can’t touch them; the temples drill that into apprentice summoners from day one. Touching an active fayth stone is a good way to, as the rumors go, find yourself dead or sucked into whatever the summon is currently doing or perhaps worse. There may not even _be_ a known way to destroy a fayth stone; it’s not as though most people even want to.

Barthello shrugs. “It’s never been a true defeat before. If nothing else, it would buy people time to come up with another way.”

“You’re assuming anyone would think to use the time that way.” Dona thinks she knows who will find a way, and it rankles her to admit defeat at the hands of Braska’s daughter, of all people – but then, Yuna surrounded herself with people willing to look at the matter from all angles. “Besides, there’s another problem.”

“There is?”

“Suppose… suppose I did what Maester Seymour seems to have done. Suppose I accept the Final Aeon and then never seek to use it against Sin. We’ve spent this whole time making peace with the fact that you’d have to live without me, but how in the world am I supposed to live without _you_?”

Silence reigns, other than the discordant echoes of the Hymn. Dona’s mind immediately reframes the chorus as the last remnants of everyone who gave their lives to become the Final Aeon prior to this point, which fails to help matters. For all Lady Yunalesca said there was no need to fear, as she would soon face death herself, Dona’s finding fewer and fewer reasons to hope, and without that, anxiety seems to be all that remains.

“I can’t,” she finally says. “I know you’re offering freely, and it’s probably selfish of me, but… I can’t ask this of you.”

Barthello nods. “All right. So what do we do now?”

She’s about to suggest that they get up and leave _now_ , as quickly as their feet will carry them and the fiends and Unsent warrior monks allow them to progress, when Lady Yunalesca speaks up from the next room.

“Summoner Dona, we must settle this quickly. Another summoner approaches.”

Dona sighs. She suspects they’ve already delayed too long to get out of here alive – it’s the only way Lady Yunalesca can be certain her secrets are never revealed, and too many summoners have left the Calm Lands, never to be heard from again, for anyone to question it. It’s the exact opposite of everything she’d once wanted, and yet, she feels oddly peaceful.

“Let’s not keep the lady waiting any longer, Barthello. I think we’ve done all we can here.”

Barthello helps her up, and Dona leads the way into Lady Yunalesca’s chamber, hoping the pyreflies will do what they’ve done for others and share her story with whoever’s at her heels. (It’s probably Yuna, the showoff. Still, if it helps point her toward a way to break this cycle for good, it’ll be worth something, won’t it?)

Whatever fate they face now, they’ll face it together.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't see Isaaru faring much better, if he'd been able to finish the pilgrimage before Yuna. Putting your own life on the line is one thing; choosing which of your brothers is going to have to carry on alone is quite another.


End file.
